


Diversionary Tactics

by Eerie



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Bargaining, Blackmail, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:32:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eerie/pseuds/Eerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fancy gala, a reckless plan, and an unexpected bloodhound gains the upper hand. </p>
<p>How far is Bunny willing to go to stave off their arrest, and are the consequences even worth it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diversionary Tactics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JohnnyVox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnnyVox/gifts).



It is with some trepidation that I put these words to paper, not for future publication, but to set down the events as they occurred and give more meaning to the flames that will later consume them. A foolish act of symbolism, I know, but what more can I hope to achieve in light of what has happened? I simply must attempt to purify the smallest measure of it, even if it is strictly for my own psyche. For any ease of the burden I now bear would be welcomed, though I cannot say for certain whether I truly deserve it. After all, I did play my part in the whole affair—selflessly, and perhaps not completely within the bounds of my own will—and what is done is, of course, done. Still, I find myself infinitely the worse for it, and I cannot stop some part of me from laying most of the blame on Raffles himself…

But here I am creating an introduction to a story that is already marked with a terribly short life. Old habits are difficult things. I shall simply get on with it. And then, hopefully, in time, I can learn to live with this bizarre _arrangement_ with which I am now indefinitely saddled.

*

It was an unseasonably warm night for early October that Raffles and I had pulled off a flawless heist at the home of a wealthy antique enthusiast while the owner himself slept soundly in the room next door. Raffles had been considering the residence for quite some time before he decided that it was worth cracking after all. He took his usual precautions and indulged in his beloved theatrical aids to stake out the place and the habits of its master for the better part of a week afterward.

Prior to that, I hadn’t seen much of my friend that month aside from a handful of dinner outings at our club. But money, inevitably, dwindles. Due to our monthly bills and fees and, of course, our preferences for life’s little luxuries, it tends to run thin rather fast. And the antique-lover’s house was just a stone’s throw from where I lived.

So it was that Raffles had appeared at the door to my flat in Mount Street, a bottle of my favorite red wine in the crook of his arm and that old devilish gleam in his eye, and took me into his confidence about his plans. It was never a difficult thing for him to raise me up to his own level of eagerness for any sort of _expedition_ , despite all the apparent dangers, and by the time that bottle had been emptied I was ready to do anything for him. My own consistent downfall, as ever.

We agreed upon my rooms becoming the headquarters for our mission, as was more convenient, and I was personally very pleased to be seeing a good deal more of my friend. Cricket season had just wound down, and as usual Raffles was not ready to wind down with it. I am convinced the prospect of having little else to do from that point of the year onward put him in a kind of reckless funk (though he would never admit as such), and for my part I could never bring myself to turn his attentions away.

Little surprise, then, that the ease with which we had plundered the house left an unsatisfied note in Raffles’s mood. Though our haul and the consideration of how much quid he could receive in exchange had gone far to appease him, he still managed to sulk. Before repairing back to the Albany for the night, he had promised that he would call upon me again with my share of the proceeds before the lunch hour struck. 

He was true to his word, though not with the expected results from his fence. I could tell from the moment I opened the door to him that things hadn’t gone quite as anticipated.

“It’s a rum thing, Bunny,” he muttered as he threw my share of the money on the table and himself into the chair before the low fire. “We shall have to take on something else very soon if we’re to so much as make ends meet by the time Christmas is out and the new year in.”

“What do you suggest?” I asked, seeing that the money really wasn’t much to celebrate over.

Raffles lit a Sullivan and offered me one from his case, which I took. He mused in silence for the entire duration of that cigarette, and I didn’t dare to disturb his thoughts.

“Damn it all,” he growled quite suddenly as he hurled the butt into the fire.

I snubbed mine out in the ashtray and awaited his explanation as I poured us each a measure of Scotch whisky. He glanced over at me, and I could see he was unhappy, but he accepted his drink with a flicker at the corner of his lips that I took for gratefulness.

“There’s a big to-do next week at Lord Comstock’s, to which a few notable cricketers have been invited—I myself being one among them. It’s the coming-of-age celebration for the Comstock boy, but as his father is a rather renowned cricket enthusiast, I suspect the event will double as a little end-of-the-season congratulatory gathering. I wasn’t planning on going, but as his wife shares his wealth and has fine tastes in jewelry…”

“A. J.!” I interjected, already guessing at where he was about to go with this. “What about your rule against stealing from your hosts?”

“Well, I _was_ getting to that,” Raffles snapped.

I settled into the settee and nursed my drink with a steady downward gaze and a silent tongue.

Raffles sighed after a spell. “Times are hard, old boy. Sometimes rules must be broken. If not for the greater good, then for the means to survive.”

I looked up and watched him rub his temples with his free hand. 

“You’ll come with me.” Though he had said it softly, I could sense quite easily that there was no room for arguments.

I admit the idea vexed me greatly. If not for the fact that it came up so close on the tail end of our last burglary, then for the sheer indecency of the idea. For I, too, shared Raffles’s notion that one’s hosts should never be treated as targets for theft. No, I did not want to go with him and I did not want to take any part in it.

“As you like,” I replied.

“I’ll work something out, Bunny, never fear. Perhaps if luck is on our side we’ll even be provided with a bit of sport this time around! Next Wednesday. Be ready by a quarter past seven. I’ll come ‘round to fetch you then.”

And so we went out, Raffles and I, resplendent to the Comstock Estate just outside London on the following Wednesday.

Time had done much to ease my reservations beforehand. Time and a good deal of justification in my own mind. We were still hard up, that much was true, but Raffles would never lift more than was necessary. He was still a gentleman, after all. The Comstocks were ridiculously wealthy; they would hardly miss whatever we would take.

Once our hansom had pulled up to the enormous mansion doors, I had trained myself to anticipate the dreadful brand of boredom that such events usually offer. It was surely to be just another dry, high-society affair to which Raffles (and by extension, my inevitable self as “Guest”) had been invited, or so I had previously thought. But as we stood near the piano a bit later, sipping our champagne and watching the dancers tripping about the floor to the music, a familiar face suddenly seized my attention. A face that had never failed to produce an involuntary shudder of anxiety throughout my whole body, and naturally one that I had absolutely no desire to repeat seeing since the day I had met the man possessing it. Mackenzie: that dreadful nuisance of a detective, prowling along the opposite wall near the high windows. 

The man caught my eye from across the room through the shifting slices of empty air that fleetingly appeared between waves of dancing bodies, and my blood instantly went cold. Though he was too far away at the moment to properly read his expression, there could be no mistake about the eagerness behind it. He had been casing us, sniffing after our tracks from the very start, and ever since we arrived. The ennui I had been suffering from the moment I entered the house quickly evaporated, and I gripped Raffles’s elbow hard before steering us both toward the front entrance.

Raffles looked down at my hand and back up to my face, his bewilderment evident, but I had taken him so by surprise that he inevitably followed my lead. When we reached the vestibule—empty but for the doorman—Raffles pulled his arm from my tight grasp.

“Surely you’re not ready to leave yet, old chap?” he asked in an over-loud voice laced with poorly conceived joviality. No doubt for the sake of the servant. I could see the contrasting irritation with me all over his expression. He must have known the nature of what I had to tell him, or else I had somehow bungled his secret plans for the evening.

I tossed a glance at the doorman, who watched us with mild interest, and realized my mistake. 

“Of course not, I just need a quick word is all.” I recovered by smiling and beckoning Raffles around the corner, between a nearby pillar and a sumptuous palm plant. He followed, and as soon as I was certain no one else stood within earshot, I let my panic surface. 

“It’s Mackenzie. He’s _here_ , Raffles!” I whispered furiously.

Rather than sharing in my newfound fears, Raffles merely rolled his eyes, looked up at the ceiling and gently shook his head in a gesture I knew far too well and liked even less. “Bunny, it truly does pain me to know you think me so unobservant.”

“You…you knew?”

“Of course I knew! I’ve known for some time. Now what, exactly, is the problem?”

I felt my blood begin to rise, but I attempted—rather unsuccessfully—to calm myself. How like him to keep me in the dark all this time. “I’m telling you, he’s on our trail. We must have slipped up somehow last week. He probably suspects you’ve got something on for tonight as well!”

Raffles smirked at me, and by doing so threw me into a perfect heat. “My dear rabbit, you do worry your head far more than is good for you. We did not slip up. The Yard has no leads, and thus Mackenzie has absolutely nothing to go on. And if he did have any sort of warrant on us, he would have made a grand show of it by now.”

Though his calm tone did little to appease me, I considered his words carefully. The fact remained that I had recognized the hunter’s glint in the detective’s eyes. Raffles would have to do far more to mollify me that night. Given my way, we would be out the door and away from the entire affair in less than two minutes, however suspicious that alone might appear.

“Then certainly your plans have changed?” I asked.

Raffles sipped his champagne with perfect languid ease and began to stroll away quite slowly, so as to work me up as much as possible while ignoring my question. I was nearly seething by the time we reached the threshold of the hall. Mackenzie was all at once right there before us, halted in his tracks at our sudden reappearance.

“Why, good evening, Inspector.” Raffles raised his glass and slightly inclined his smiling head. “How marvelous to see you again.”

“Evening,” Mackenzie replied rather blandly, not returning the smile.

I said nothing. I couldn’t.

“Under cover yet again? It must certainly be nice to get paid for attending fancy galas such as this,” Raffles gibed with an even broader smile and gestured at the half-empty glass in the inspector’s hand.

Mackenzie regarded my friend with a high chin and an even higher air before smirking and deliberately brushing past me to walk away. “Indeed. In more ways than one, I should think,” he remarked without turning.

“Well, how extraordinary!” Raffles said as he watched the inspector’s retreating back. Amusement evidenced itself upon his face, but as ever, I could not penetrate its reason.

Raffles might have been having fun on some mysterious level, but I, on the other hand, was at my wit’s end. Once Mackenzie had disappeared around the corner leading into a nearby corridor, I remembered to breathe again.

“Raffles! What are we even still doing here? The whole thing is off!”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Bunny old boy.”

That familiar glow of perverse excitement had revealed itself upon his countenance at last, and with it a sense of heavy dread unrolled in my poor gut.

“No. No! You can’t possibly mean to go through with it? You must be barking!” I fairly cried.

“Shush! Not now.” 

Raffles stopped a passing maid to replace his champagne glass with a full one. I did the same, for I suddenly found I quite needed it.

*

The events of the night proceeded as normal, though Raffles barely spoke to me again for its remainder. Overnight guests retired to their appointed rooms, and the house eventually fell quiet. For my part, I was more than happy to escape Mackenzie’s constant scrutiny and fell onto the tightly made bed with a sigh of relief. I hadn’t bothered to change my clothes; I knew Raffles would be there to collect me at any moment. But as the minutes ticked away into the small hours of the morning, I couldn’t help nodding off. Whatever dreams I had during that time must have been unpleasant, for I awoke with a firm shake and Raffles’s concerned face floating just inches over mine.

“Alright?” he asked.

I mumbled something and stood up, shaking the effects of sleep from my brain.

“Good. Now, I told you I would come up with a plan and I’m as true to my word as ever. Your part is simple. Keep watch. Just like our first job together, eh?” 

Raffles slapped and rubbed my shoulder affectionately, and I followed him out the door with all my nerves immediately alight. I had no idea whether Mackenzie remained at the house, though I would have been more surprised to learn that he hadn’t.

The night felt completely wrong all over again. Something would certainly go south; I could feel it as surely as the heavy thudding in my chest. Yet I followed Raffles without a word, for I knew he would be deaf to any entreaties I could offer at that point. We were already out in the hallway, and risking any noise above a breath would only serve to get us caught. I nearly trod on his heels more than once in my anxiety.

The lady of the house’s bedroom was on the floor above, and as fortune would have it we managed to make it there without so much as a creak from the floorboards. Raffles signaled where I should wait before slipping into the room in question, and I trained my eyes and ears on every shadow in that empty corridor, half terrified that Mackenzie would materialize out of any one of them. From my vantage point, I could see the stairs and a bit of the landing below, as well as the entirety of the hallway. I would swear upon my soul that all was clear, but still there remained a persistent sensation of hidden eyes fixed upon me. Nothing stirred.

Before long Raffles had rejoined me, hooked his arm through mine, and silently led me back down the stairs toward my room. I was grateful for the support, for my legs had been slightly unsteady. Whether from relief or my own fears, I could not be certain. I had no idea if Raffles had even been successful in lifting the jewels, though he seemed to be in higher spirits. 

But soon none of that mattered. All of my lingering terrors manifested in that single second after Raffles had closed the door behind us and turned up the lamp. 

Mackenzie sat in the chair in the corner, his arms crossed and his face ridiculously satisfied. Raffles and I both froze, and I am certain that Mackenzie’s smugness increased tenfold as a result.

“Evening, gentlemen. Or should I say, morning,” the detective drawled and stood. “Sorry to interrupt your impending little celebration,” and he hesitated while making a show of looking meaningfully between our linked arms and our faces, “but I believe I’ll be the one to do the celebrating this day instead. Turn out your pockets. Now.”

Mackenzie’s tone had suddenly hardened, and Raffles said nothing as the man advanced on us. Neither did he make any move to obey.

Mackenzie clicked his tongue disapprovingly and shoved me aside. I stumbled and nearly fell, and though Raffles reached out to steady me, Mackenzie held him back and began to roughly thrust his hands into Raffles’s jacket lining. When he extracted his hands again, a diamond necklace glittered between his fingers.

He waggled the thing in front of my friend’s face, shaking his head as if in pity. “After all this time, I’ve finally snagged you red-handed. Though it does seem a right foolhardy job, this. Too reckless, too obvious. Or were you simply asking to be caught, Mr. Raffles?”

Raffles snorted. “Oh do get on with it, Mackenzie. There’s no need for pointless overanalyzing.”

Mackenzie’s eyebrows rose. “You’re giving me orders now, are you, Mr. Raffles? You think you’re in a position to do so?”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Raffles muttered and rolled his eyes, holding out his wrists in a mock display of submission. “Just get out your damned darbies already, won’t you?”

Mackenzie simply stared Raffles down for an agonizingly long series of seconds, during which I struggled with a flight-or-flight conflict. I considered the odds of my success were I to attempt striking Mackenzie down. But whether or not Raffles and I got away just then, the jig was officially up for the pair of us.

“I’ll be damned, you really were asking for it!” Mackenzie finally said.

“And why, pray tell, would I do something like that?” The hard glare tempered with obvious burgeoning amusement that Raffles shot at the detective was unlike anything I’d ever seen on his face before.

“A good question. Perhaps the criminal life no longer appeals to you? Nah, I’ll wager there’s something else in it...”

Raffles lowered his arms and relaxed his stance. “By all means, wager away.”

The two of them regarded one another, and I as I looked from one to the other I saw that they were both smiling. Whatever had transpired between them was completely lost to me, but it lent me a horrible, unnamable sensation.

“You’ve been a good adversary, Mr. Raffles,” Mackenzie said. “Aye, one of the best I’ve ever known. And I do believe it’d be a shame to ruin the young lord of the house’s celebration over something this, well, this _unsatisfying_.”

To my great astonishment, the inspector handed the diamond necklace back to Raffles, whose grin quickly dissolved.

“Now, you’re going to go back upstairs in that same blasted, sneaking manner of yours and replace Lady Comstock’s necklace precisely as you found it. You will then come straight back here. I’ll advise you not to try making a break for it. I have men posted on the grounds.”

Raffles looked from the necklace to Mackenzie before wordlessly taking the thing and stalking from the room without so much as a glance spared for me. I watched him go, and I was certain my shock was evident, because the inspector sighed and ordered me to sit down before I really did fall over. Once I had seated myself on the edge of the bed, Mackenzie settled back down in the corner chair with his right hand tucked in his pocket. I had the distinct notion just then that he was probably armed, though I myself would not attempt an escape either way. There would be little point.

During Raffles’s absence, I entertained fantasies of our impending life in prison. How many years would we get for this; or were our freedoms and reputations as we knew them at a swift and permanent end? The more I mused, the uglier the scenarios unfolded in my mind. I had been ruined once before, and ruined I would be again. Only this time no one would be there to offer an assisting arm and a means to salvation, the way Raffles had done for me not so many years ago. And Raffles’s life as he knew it would be decimated. He could never return to cricket, would never be allowed back into rooms like those of the Albany anywhere in the whole of London.

A sudden, intense fear swept over me. I was certain right then that anything I could do to avoid such a horrible fate—more for my friend than for myself—would be preferable to whatever lay in store via Wormwood Scrubs.

I was up off the bed like a shot—without regard for my own safety, for I knew not what kind of man Mackenzie was when holding a loaded pistol. The only thing that mattered less in that moment was my own dignity. I was on my knees between his, plaintive and fairly shaking as I quickly reached out for his flies.

“What in the blazes are you doing, man?!” Mackenzie might have yelled it for all its ferocity, but clearly he had meant not wanting to rouse the household in the dead of night, and it came as a strangled bite instead.

“Anything. I’ll…I’ll do anything, just…please. Please don’t take him in.” I hated the way my voice betrayed my consternation, but I absolutely would not turn back. I had nothing left to offer at that point.

A brief glance at the man’s shocked and confused face was all I could handle before I simply had to look away, lest my resolve shatter. I took a deep breath and carried on with my work. I had done this sort of thing before—though admittedly never under such pressure and as a service to one that could readily be labeled an enemy—so the task itself was not difficult on a rote level. Mackenzie sat completely rigid, disbelieving, as I removed him from his trousers, and for his stillness I was profoundly grateful. Any movement from above equated to a potential bullet in my head. Yet his paralysis clearly didn’t extend far beyond his upper body, and he eventually began to fill out in my quaking fingers. I closed my eyes and set my tongue to work instead.

“Aye, I knew you were that sort,” he finally muttered. “Thievery should’ve been the least of your worries.”

The urge to bite him stole over me, but I managed to restrain myself in time. I knew the profound importance behind the fact that he hadn’t thus far bludgeoned me, shot me, or done anything at all to stop me. It was an encouraging sign. Plus, his prick was sturdy and attentive, which made it all the easier to carry on.

I didn’t hear the door open or shut, just Raffles’s voice suddenly very close and soft behind me soon after: “Well, clearly I _have_ missed something interesting while I was away.”

I stopped and drew back, turning to offer what I had no doubt was my most sincerely abashed expression, but Raffles merely wore a smirk. He then regarded me with an uplifted head, and the shadows spilled strangely over his face. Or perhaps I had merely imagined it. How long had he been standing there?

“No one told you to stop, Bunny.”

I was positively shocked by Raffles’s words, for I believed something deep inside of me wanted him to come up with one of his spontaneous plans to get me—and subsequently us—out of this perfect mess. But he continued to watch me with that same expectant, dark expression, and I had little choice but to turn back to what I had previously been laboring over.

Mackenzie, oddly enough, had said nothing that entire time. I chanced a glance up at him—albeit a difficult thing given my face’s angle and preoccupation—and found him looking not at me, but beyond me, and with a disturbing glimmer in his eyes. 

He was looking straight at Raffles.

I burned to turn and see what on earth my friend was doing to captivate the inspector’s attention like that, but Raffles stopped me by speaking again. This time, however, he instructed me.

“Start again from the base, Bunny, and work your way up slowly. Drag your teeth just a bit as you go.” His voice was quiet and low, of the quality I had only ever heard him use on those particularly rare occasions when we were alone in his bedroom, but his demand for teeth struck me with singular immediacy. That was the way Raffles himself liked it.

I did as I was told as if I hadn’t known what was to come next, despite the utter familiarity of it all, and I heard the pair of them sigh almost in unison. The unreality of the entire affair descended like a thick fog upon my brain, though it still did little to disrupt the unsavory heat that gradually built in my groin as a result of my ministrations.

“Good. Now, circle the tip with your tongue, softly. Slower...there. Now just a bit quicker. Firmer.”

I obeyed every lesson he offered, and Mackenzie’s prick fairly throbbed under me; I could not tell whether it was Raffles or myself who contributed more to that end.

“Yes, that’s the way. Suck it in deep now, Bunny. As much as you can take.”

I held my breath and plunged down, ever downward, until I felt myself on the brink of gagging with the effort and the sensation against the back of my throat. And I pulled back up—grazing the apex of my burden with teeth and tongue as I was accustomed to doing for another—before repeating my actions. The salacious moan with which I was encouraged from above reminded me very much of my Raffles, and I quickly felt the process smoothing before me.

Before long—with only a few minutes’ preoccupation in the same vein—I felt Mackenzie’s calloused fingers seize my hair, holding me fast within his vicinity as he began to meet my efforts halfway with shallow thrusts. His hot release took me quite by surprise when it came seconds later, though I would not allow myself to shrink away from it. I took it the way I would have taken it for my beloved, and in one way, that is precisely what I did.

As soon as Mackenzie’s increasingly viselike hold on my hair had loosened, I stumbled upright and backed away. I had no real idea as to Raffles’s proximity, and I bumped into him almost immediately. His hands instantly encircled me and gripped my wrists—preventing me from wiping at my mouth—before yanking me around with nothing short of brutality. His lips crushed into mine unceremoniously, and as he forced my mouth open to him, he licked at the dregs of my sacrifice as if he had been hungering for it. I was so taken aback by his fervor I admit I could do little more than ride along with his strange whims, and as Mackenzie’s essence passed between us like some terrible shared secret, I felt my energy finally and truly wane.

When Raffles eventually deigned to release me from his kiss, I found Mackenzie sorted out and standing as if nothing had even happened. The fierceness of his stare as he watched us, however, could not be cast aside so easily.

“You’ve done as I bade?” he addressed Raffles, all business. “Or do I need to search you again?”

My friend hesitated, the corner of his mouth twitching with that old attempt to hold back a grin that I knew so well. “No need…for now.”

“Right. Then I see no reason to keep you any longer from your beds. Goodnight, gentlemen.”

He crossed the room, pulled open the door, and began to exit, cool as you please. He paused, however, and looked back round at us.

“Your day _will_ come, Mr. Raffles. I won’t have you forgetting that for even a moment.”

“No indeed,” Raffles replied. “I shall hold it firmly in mind with all due reverence.”

“That is advisable. I’ll be watching you.” Mackenzie’s narrowed eyes shifted to me. “Both of you.”

The meaning behind his threat was clear. He now knew into what territories our various illegal activities extended, but how and when he would choose to rein us in for his own uncertain ends remained to be seen. I had a number of notions on the subject, and none of them were pleasant.

Mackenzie left us, and I turned to Raffles, distressed. “Raffles, you really did return the necklace?”

Raffles stood, unmoved, still looking at the empty space where the inspector had just been. “Just this time, Bunny. Just this one time.”

Whatever lurked in his voice, behind his eyes, in that moment made me very, very uneasy. 

I believed him about returning the diamonds. I did not believe him for the rest. And the culmination of my anxiety came with the realization that we would be seeing far more of Mackenzie than usual from that day onward.


End file.
